MRI: Acquisition of a state-of-the-art high-resolution X-ray computed tomography scanner

该主要研究仪器奖支持为德克萨斯大学高分辨率x射线计算机断层扫描设施（UTCT）购买最先进的微型计算机断层扫描扫描仪，这是一个由nsf支持的共享多用户设施，为科学界提供扫描服务、研究、培训、软件开发和专业知识。计算机断层扫描（CT）非常适合许多地质应用，因为它可以无损地创建岩石，化石，陨石和其他材料内部的3D图像。新仪器将提供领先的功能，使研究人员和学生能够以更快的速度获得优越的数据，并探索以前在实验室中不可能实现的新型成像。这些改进将使广泛的研究用户受益；仅在2018年，就发表了75多篇使用UTCT数据的同行评议论文，涉及地球科学、生物科学、工程和人类学。这台名为蔡司Versa 620的新仪器将使扫描速度和可实现的空间分辨率提高一倍，同时以高分辨率在更大的样品中扩展其成像子体积的能力。它包括进行实验室衍射对比断层扫描（DCT）的新功能，以获得样品体积内的晶体取向信息，以前只能在同步加速器束流线上实现。新仪器还将无缝地接受实验细胞，能够在各种温度、压力和流体流动的地质条件下对样品进行原位分析。它还将使UTCT参与层析成像重建算法的发展，并从中受益，使研究人员能够从原始x射线衰减数据中获得更详细、更少噪声的信息。这些新功能强化了该设施的使命，既可以作为没有CT仪器的研究人员的高质量数据来源，也可以通过个人咨询和合作、教授短期课程和分发软件，作为CT数据采集和分析各个方面的经验和专业知识的存储库。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Major Research Instrumentation award supports acquisition of a state-of-the-art micro-computed tomography scanner for the University of Texas High-Resolution X-ray Computed Tomography Facility (UTCT), an NSF-supported shared multi-user facility that provides scanning services, research, training, software development, and expertise to the scientific community. Computed tomography (CT) is ideally suited to many geological applications, as it nondestructively creates 3D imagery of the interiors of rocks, fossils, meteorites and other materials. The new instrument will offer leading-edge capabilities, allowing investigators and students to acquire superior data at greater speed, and explore new types of imaging never before possible in the laboratory. These enhancements will benefit a wide range of research users; in 2018 alone, more than 75 peer-reviewed papers using UTCT data were published, in the geosciences, biosciences, engineering, and anthropology. The new instrument, a Zeiss Versa 620, will double both the scanning speed and achievable spatial resolution of the instrument it is replacing, while expanding its ability to image subvolumes within larger samples at high resolution. It includes the new capability to do laboratory-based diffraction contrast tomography (DCT) to obtain crystallographic orientation information within sample volumes, previously only possible at synchrotron beam lines. The new instrument will also seamlessly accept experimental cells enabling in situ analyses of samples at various geologic conditions of temperature, pressure, and fluid flow. It will also position UTCT to participate in and benefit from algorithmic developments in tomographic reconstruction, allowing the investigators to get more detailed and less noisy information from the raw X-ray attenuation data. These new capabilities reinforce the facility mission to serve both as a source of high-quality data for investigators without access to CT instrumentation, and as a repository of experience and expertise in all aspects of CT data acquisition and analysis, both through individual consultation and collaboration and by teaching short courses and distributing software.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.